Those of you that follow cars will remember, I am sure the Hillman Hunter a car assembled in NZ by Todd motors. The Hunter provided, to car starved New Zealanders, four doors, a good sized boot, zippy performance, good fuel economy all at reasonable price. Well when it was dropped from the Rootes group line up in the 1970’s another large group of people were to enjoy all the features that made it a top seller in NZ. The whole production line was sold to Iran and for the last 30 years many millions have been produced in Iran. They can still be purchased new from car sales outlets in Iran. In it’s latest form it is 1600cc and fuel injected, and I have to say goes really well, having ridden in a number over the last few days. At one stage a few years ago more that 95% of all the cars in Iran were the old Hillman Hunter, renamed for Iran as the Paykan, and pronounced like the nut (Pecan). Fuel economy, well it’s still good, but not really important, as the price of fuel is 16 cents NZ per litre!!
Does anyone remember when we paid 16 cents a litre? Mind you we paid 2 dollars NZ per litre in Turkey. Hot off the press – the very last Paykan was produced today, this means a production run in both UK and Iran of something like 40years, this almost beats the VW!!
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